NRA

04/10/2015

The Jeb Bush "I'm A Conservative, Really!" tour brings him to Nashville today where he will court all the gun toting extremists during the NRA's annual convention there.

Naturally, the man who brought us Stand Your Ground will be bragging up what a great thing that law has been for Florida. You can see that among an entire laundry list of pro-gun talking points expected in his speech here.

"In his speech to the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum (Bush) will discuss the importance of second amendment rights and, more broadly, individual freedom and the freedom to defend liberty when it’s threatened by government intrusion/regulation," his staff said in an advance of the forum."

"He’ll address the current challenge our country faces under the Obama Administration, where the government is getting too big and too intrusive. Governor Bush will highlight many of the laws he passed as governor that served as a model for many other states’ gun laws."

This is pretty standard stuff we've heard from just about every Republican when they kiss the ring of Big Gun. But Bush's signature SYG law hasn't been used to guard against the phantom government intrusion he warns about, and he knows this. SYG in Florida has been used to guard against black teenagers in hoodies armed with Skittles, and black teenagers playing loud music, though it didn't work so well for the black woman who fired a warning shot when she feared for her life in a domestic dispute with her husband. We all know who went to jail in that case.

The families of the victims and the living victims of that law probably wouldn't agree that SYG is the golden ticket to liberty, but Bush doesn't much care for people who disagree with him.

Case in point, Michael Schiavo, the husband of the late Terri Schiavo, whose case Jeb placed himself in the middle of back in the 1990's, when Mr. Schiavo tried to honor his wife's wishes that she not remain on life support for the rest of her life while in a vegetative state.

Mr. Schiavo would no doubt disagree that Jeb Bush is the champion of "defending liberty when it's threatened by government intrusion" he's claiming to be before the powers that be in the NRA today.

Bush’s last-ditch effort involved the Department of Children and Families. Attorneys for the state agency made motions to intervene based on thousands of anonymous allegations of abuse against Terri Schiavo. Bush ordered the mobilization of officers from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement—in essence his own police force—and they readied to seize Terri Schiavo if a court order allowed it. “I requested that FDLE in concert with the Department of Children and Families be prepared to enter,” Bush told reporters, “if that was going to be the option available to us”—which it wasn’t, because judges said no. “We were ready to go,” a Bush spokesman told the Miami Herald....

...Today, looking back, what makes Felos, the attorney for Michael Schiavo, angriest about the case is Bush’s letter to McCabe. Even after 18 months of legal wrangling, even after her death, even after the autopsy—after all that—the governor asked a prosecutor to initiate a retroactive criminal investigation of his client. It struck Felos as “odd,” “bizarre”—“personal.”

That, Michael Schiavo said this month, is what makes Jeb Bush “vindictive.” “Knowing that he had no standing in this, he made it worse for everybody,” he said. “He made life, for a lot of people—the nursing home people, the local police, lawyers—he made everybody miserable.”

What makes him “untrustworthy,” he said, is that he fought the courts as long as he did just because he didn’t like the decisions they kept making."

If this isn't government intrusion, I don't know what Jeb Bush's definition of government intrusion is.

It seems he doesn't like government intrusion unless he's the one intruding, and if it's politically motivated, all the better for Jeb, no matter who gets hurt in the process.

04/11/2014

“To allow people to go into a riot while concealing a gun without a permit is the definition of insanity,” said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri. “The bill is crazy. It’s absurd.”

And yet the Florida House approved a bill to do just that. Because what Florida law enforcement wants no longer matters when the NRA holds the puppet strings in Tallahassee. It's not enough that they demanded people be allowed to arm themselves during emergencies like hurricanes, so they expanded it to include riots:

HB 209 would allow people with clean criminal backgrounds to conceal firearms without a permit during emergencies — including riots and civil unrest like the 1996 racial disturbances that rocked St. Petersburg — declared by the governor or local officials.

Supporters of the bill say it's intended to give gun owners the opportunity to protect their property while they are evacuating from a disaster or crisis, such as hurricanes, floods or worse.

Lots of people have "clean criminal records" until they don't. Allowing people to carry weapons into emergency and heated situations like hurricanes and riots would be a real good way to acquire a criminal record, but by then it's a little late to say "You know, we probably shouldn't have let that guy carry a gun." But then I suppose the bigger picture is that the more laws like this the NRA can shove through, the easier it will be to get away with just about whatever you want.

When the Florida legislature's day job has pretty much become taking away people's rights that have historically led to things like civil unrest, I suppose this kind of thing shouldn't surprise anyone.

If Florida GOP legislators get their way, two of their newly proposed gun bills ths year could make that statement true for more than just SYG. It could become a nightmare for teachers, students, and their parents at schools all over the state.

09/05/2013

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is taking time out from doing whatever is necessary to block Floridians from getting affordable health care to target another issue: A law that blocks guns from being purchased by 18, 19, and 20 year olds.

Ayotte is the Senator who, after voting against background checks, saw her approval ratings do a nosedive. Having tanked in the polls, she now claims she supports, and in fact voted for background checks. She's so desperate to have constituents believe this that she penned an op-ed at the Bedford Patch, opening with this statement:

I want to set the record straight: I support effective background checks and in fact voted recently to improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

Rubio of course knows this, and while he's not all that sharp in some departments, he knows how to grift. So if he can cash in on ignorance and score political points at the same time, what's not to love? "Freedom" at any price is Rubio's cash cow, and his selling of it has little to do with actual Democracy, or common sense.

Liberals just can’t get over the fact that their most recent attempt to restrict our Second Amendment rights was defeated soundly by the American people.

Whether Rubio can read, or chooses not to, is beside the point here. It's not "liberals" that can't get over the background checks that failed, which in no way would have restricted Rubio's beloved Second Amendment rights. It's the 91% of all "the people" regardless of party affiliation who favored those very same background checks that won't easily get over the fact that Rubio and his "freedom loving" colleagues voted against their will. It wasn't "defeated soundly by the American people," it was defeated by 46 NRA backed Senators, several of which are now seeing their poll numbers plummet. Go figure. If "the people" had soundly defeated it, the NRA would have no need to spend $250,000 to support Ayotte now, and Rubio would have no reason to grift anew. And yet, here he is waving a petition in the face of the gullible as he hands them a pen to sign it with, and while they're at, another check. "Reclaim America" indeed.

No, for the sake of this particular argument, these are a few of the only people that matter in Rubio's world right now. The people who have vowed to break the law by marching into Washington armed on the Fourth of July, and daring any authorities to enforce that law against openly carrying loaded weapons in the subtlest way possible. Nothing says "subtle" like knowingly break the law, then claiming enforcement of that law means "the government chooses to make it violent."

Speaking as a "liberal" I would be the first to stand up for, and support anyone, Republican or Democrat, who would be willing do what all of "the people" want, not just the ones who Rubio defines as "Americans." The majority of Americans do, but they have no representation in Marco's world, and he's not being subtle in pointing that out. For those who still need a little convincing, he and Ayotte have to grift their way around reality to get where they want to go. Unfortunately the dishonesty is catching up with them, and their desperation is showing.

Obtaining power by propaganda and force rarely bodes well, but then isn't that the whole idea that Rubio has propped up his history and political ambitions with?

04/24/2013

Last week it was reported that authorities searching for clues in the Boston Marathon bombing were hampered in their efforts because of an NRA backed law that prevents tracing explosives. Had the law not been in place, the investigation might have moved along quicker and perhaps could have saved the life of a policeman who was shot by one of the bombers.

In addition to that, current laws on the books also allow anyone to purchase up to 50 pounds of explosive powders without a background check.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday introduced a bill that would require background checks to be run on anyone buying explosive powder, a reaction to last week's Boston Marathon bombing.

Reid introduced the bill, S. 792, for Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who has been out sick for much of the year. But in a press statement, Lautenberg said the Boston bombing shows that background checks are needed for explosive materials.

"It defies common sense that anyone, even a terrorist, can walk into a store in America and buy explosive powders without a background check or any questions asked," Lautenberg said Tuesday. "Requiring a background check for an explosives permit is a small price to pay to ensure the safety of our communities.

The bill would not only require background checks on purchases of the powder, but would also stop the sale of explosives to suspected terrorists, and require a permit to make homemade explosives.

Last week Republicans filibustered gun background checks, so it will be interesting to see if they'll have the guts to actually do something about this, especially when it's a law that could have helped just days ago in the investigation of a terrorist attack.

More to the point, will Marco Rubio once again block any legislation that would protect the public safety of his constituents? Given his track record, I would say the chances of him doing anything that the public wants doesn't stand the chance against his big donors like the NRA.

Once again, The Daily Show illustrates why they're sometimes a more credible "news source" than traditional media.

Here, John Oliver goes to the heart of the conventional wisdom, and the truth on why so many Washington lawmakers still refuse to pass gun legislation that 91 percent of Americans want.

Watch as a former aid to Sen. Harry Reid admits that getting reelected is more important to politicians than enacting legislation that protects the public safety, the evidence of which we saw last week in Washington. Sadly, you'll also see that Australian politicians faced with the same political consequences were still willing and able to do the right thing. If only more of our politicians had the guts to do the same.

04/17/2013

This afternoon, as parents of children who were gunned down in Newtown look on, the Senate will fail to get the 60 votes necessary to get the minimal of a common sense measure that could have prevented the next Newtown. For that, thanks go to Republicans and Democrats, including the latest "no" from Senator Kelly Ayotte, of faux Benghazi rage. A Democrat, Heidi Heitkamp, also announced her opposition today.

We've been cautioned all along by the "conventional wisdom" that gun legislation would never see the light of day, a talking point that is uttered almost immediately after each gun massacre in this country by politicians and media alike. We're told that the NRA is "too big to fail" so to speak, and they will not allow anyone to even entertain the tiniest measure of preventative gun legislation because gun owners rights to own an arsenal trump the right to life for anyone else in the country, (absent a fetus, of course) lest the Wayne LaPierres and Marion Hammers of the world give them a bad report card like teachers from hell. They'll not only face the wrath of ruling members of the horror club, but they'll be cut off from the cash flow, which is the true bottom line in this revolving door of hypocrisy and has been for years.

When Newtown happened, many thought or hoped that finally that sanity would prevail. But thanks to cowards like Ayotte, Heitkamp, and their "no" voting colleagues, unless there is some kind of mind blowing change of heart, insanity will win again today in full view of parents who have suffered one of the most horrible losses imaginable in a moment of needless gun violence. These Senators will cast a "no" vote, and in essence they'll convey the message that these lost children mean nothing to them. Their "no" votes come at a price. The Senators and the gun lobby profit again, while ordinary people just trying to live a normal life will lose theirs. In this last case, mostly 6 and 7 year olds.

You Senators must be so proud.

You may "win" one for yourselves and the NRA today with this vote, but like it or not, times have changed in spite of you and the conventional wisdom.

The NRA has made every excuse in the book, and you have echoed many of them as instructed. But every excuse has been shown to be hypocritical, and factual nonsense. Sane people recognize this. Yet in spite of poll numbers that have shown from 80-91% of Americans, at any given time since Newtown, including gun owners and NRA members, are in favor of the very changes you will vote against today.

When you cast that vote today, remember that you have shown your true colors. You know longer represent the people who elected you. You'll sell out your constituents and their safety and in many cases their lives, all for a share from the gun profiteers. These profiteers who spew paranoia and fan the flames of fear, making irrational arguments that no one buys. Not even you. Just head on over to C-Span and take a look at the videos as you made the same arguments.

Lindsey Graham, for instance, who today argued that background checks woud do absolutely no good, as he cited in the same breath that criminals are arrested and convicted all the time by failing background checks.

Marco Rubio, who champions any Tea Party "freedom" label from the highest bidder, has demanded background checks for immigration reform, yet none for gun ownership. Think about that.

There are no rational arguments to vote "no," and those who vote accordingly are not rational people. The majority of Americans recognize that.

So yes, we can still blame groups like the NRA for doing everything in their power to block any gun legislation. But we can also blame you for shamelessly taking their donations while earning your precious "A" grades, and allowing what happened in Newtown to happen again. Because it will probably happen again. You know that as well as we do. Your names will be forever associated with your inaction.

And when "next time" comes, it will be on you.

UPDATE: As expected, the GOP filibustered, and the background checks compromise failed, 54-46. Bill Nelson voted for the bill, and Marco Rubio voted to filibuster it.

The Republicans who voted for the bill were Sens. Pat Toomey (PA), Mark Kirk (IL), Susan Collins (ME) and John McCain (AZ). Democrats who voted against it were Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Max Baucus (MT), Mark Begich (AK) and Mark Pryor (AR) — the latter three are up for reelection in 2014. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) changed his vote to No in the last minute to reserve the right to bring up the bill again.

In spite of Rubio and 30 others, including Democrats Mark Begich (AK) and Mark Pryor (AR), who voted to filibuster, it failed 68-31. It's just the first step, but still a failure by Rubio and the others to block any discussion, much less any changes in legislation that could work to prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown, Arizona, and Colorado, to name only the more recent in a long and growing list of gun deaths and mass shootings.

However, some of those same Republicans signaled that they may indeed filibuster legislation moving forward, and there's no doubt Rubio will be among them. He's made it perfectly clear that he thinks not only that Newtown families don't deserve to be heard, but that his constituents don't deserve to be heard either. 91% of Floridians favor tighter gun restrictions like background checks, but instead of listening to them, he's listening to lobbyists and those who stand to profit from gun sales. Those same people fan the flames after every mass shooting in order to sell more guns as they stoke fears that are unfounded. Those are the ones Rubio stands with. Those 26 deaths in Newtown didn't even register on Rubio's radar. They don't matter to him. Anyone who thinks otherwise should ask Erica Lafferty who he refused to speak to. (As of this writing, Rubio has yet to issue a statement on his vote. Apparently he doesn't feel Floridians, nor the rest of the country deserve an explanation either.)

Rubio, it seems, doesn't care about the deaths in Newtown, or Arizona, or Colorado any more than he cares what the people he's supposed to represent in Florida want. (If anyone from Florida who has tried to speak with him or contact him and been successful hearing back from him, I would love to hear about it.) He's turned a deaf ear on every one of them who feel gun laws need to be tightened. He proved it by proudly bragging that he'll do what it takes to prevent that and any discussion of it off the table in Washington. This shouldn't come as a surprise to Floridians. When he was running for office, he absurdly said he wanted to go to Washington to "shut it down." He also made this statement at CPAC during his campaign:

"First, we have to understand what’s happening. Leaders at the highest levels of our government are undertaking a deliberate and systematic effort to redefine our government, our economy and our country."

A fine example of projection if I've ever heard one. Perhaps lost on some voters was that Rubio was describing exactly the kind of leader he aspires to be. What better way to "redefine our government" than to block even a debate on something 91% of the country and his constituents want? If you thought Rubio believed in "freedom of speech," the joke is on you. Freedom of speech comes at a price in Marco's world, and you can't afford the price of a seat at his table. That seat is taken by the likes of the NRA.

The longer the inaction of Rubio and others, the more numbers will be added to that list. If Rubio gets his way in Washington and nothing is done, our already record-breaking numbers of gun deaths worldwide will mean even larger profits for the puppeteers holding Rubio's strings as they fuel his political ambitions which know no bounds. Rubio takes this stand as he condemns other countries, calling them cruel and repressive regimes. For a man who sees this as a way forward to becoming a potential Presidential nominee, what does that make him?

Today's failed filibuster is just a first step, but a positive sign that, in spite of those like Marco Rubio who ignore the will of 91% of Americans in favor of tighter gun laws, their voices will still be heard, and pushing back does, and will make a difference.

As President Obama said, "the time is now," and every voice will need to be heard to make positive changes to thwart more gun violence and deaths in the future. Those like Rubio who want to silence those voices can't be allowed to do so while claiming to stand for freedom of speech.

Of course, Rubio has made it pretty clear that he feels the same as McConnell does, and his political ambitions trump doing anything to protect Americans, children and adults, from gun violence. To that end, Rubio illustrated his cowardice with the filibuster threat.

Yesterday he doubled down on that when the daughter of the Sandy Hook principal who was killed attempted to contact him. Rubio continued to run scared when he refused to even take a phone call from Erica Lafferty. Lafferty also sent Rubio a message on Twitter, along with the others, saying that she deserved to be heard. When that too was met with silence, Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy sent out his own plea on Twitter to Rubio and the others asking them to at least call her back.

The answer? Crickets. Only one, Republican Ted Cruz, eventually did call Lafferty back.

The pressure on Rubio continues to mount as debate on gun legislation begins today in the Senate, and as outside groups begin running ads focusing on he and others who continue to stand with gun manufacturers and groups like the NRA, rather than enacting common sense measures to prevent the next Sandy Hook.

This week, Mayors Against Illegal Guns announced that they will begin "grading" lawmakers on their gun related votes and issues just as the NRA does. Their latest ad shines the spotlight on Marco Rubio.

Rubio may well continue to ignore victims, anyone pleading that he do something to curb gun violence, and the real life consequences of his inaction, but 91% of the country, and his constituents won't. They see him for what he is, and come the next election, he won't be able to ignore the results.